Sugar Free Diet

Of course, candy and desserts are made with sugar. But did you know that refined sugar is a hidden ingredient in most processed foods? (Those are the foods in boxes and bags at your supermarket.)

To be sugar free, you need to read the ingredient lists on food labels, because refined sugars go by many different names. On this site you'll find a Names for Sugar list (almost 150 of them) that you can use for this purpose.

A Few Names For Refined Sugars

To create refined sugar, food manufacturers take whole natural foods and plants and (literally) cook them down to chemically pure sugar. The left over residue is discarded or used for animal feed.

Sugar cane and sugar beets are refined into white table sugar, which is chemically pure sucrose. Because of sugar's popularity over the centuries, there are many, many names for the pure and partially pure products of sugar cane and sugar beets.

Corn is refined to create glucose, dextrose, and fructose ("fruit sugar"--yes, the "fructose" and "fruit sugar" seen on labels comes from corn). Corn, of course, is the source for corn syrup, which is also an industrially refined product.

High-fructose corn syrup is a mixture of refined glucose and refined fructose (both from corn) which is chemically so similar to sucrose (white table sugar) that it is typically used in processed foods in place of cane sugar.

Barley and rice are refined to maltose. "Malted barley" and "brown rice syrup" sound harmless on ingredients lists, but, sadly, they are also a form of manufactured sugar.

So is the "concentrated fruit juice," from a fruit source (typically apples and pears), which is used as a sweetener in some processed foods.

Commercially available molasses and honey, although having the same names as unrefined molasses and raw honey, are also refined.

Refined sugars can have the same names as natural sugars, but don't be fooled! When they are used as ingredients--and therefore appear on ingredients lists--all are refined and unnatural food additives. Find the list of the names for sugar here.

What is sugar?

The fact is that the word "sugar" has different meanings in different contexts--and unfortunately, different meanings in the Ingredients List part of the food label and the Nutrition Facts part of the food label.

Ingredients List

Every sugar listed in the Ingredients list on the food label is added, as well as either refined or concentrated.

For a sugar free diet, we're concerned about refined, concentrated, and added sugars. The World Health Organization calls them "free sugars" and defines them like this:

Free sugars: All monosaccharides and disaccharides added to foods by the manufacturer, cook, or consumer, plus sugars naturally present in honey, syrups, and fruit juices.

Nutrition Facts

The situation on the Nutrition Facts part of the food label is different.

"Sugars" is the conventional scientific term for two types of carbohydrates (monosaccharides and disaccharides). When a food is chemically analyzed for its food content--imagine a chemistry experiment--the amount of carbohydrates are calculated, and the amount of those carbohydrates that are sugars, are calculated. The results are reported in Nutrition Facts.

In 2014, the FDA has proposed changes to the Nutrition Facts. The FDA's fact sheet on the proposal notes that on the current label, "'Sugars' include both 'added sugars' and sugars that are naturally occurring in food." To remedy that, the new label would show the amount of "added sugars" as well as the amount of total "sugars."

Let's hope this proposed rule becomes final! It would make it so much easier for us to identify refined, concentrated, and added sugars on labeled food.

You can read additional information about the different uses of the word "sugar" on my What is Sugar? page.

Sugar is addictive

Why is it so hard to implement a sugar free diet? Because sugar is addictive--literally!

It's thought to be the only food that can create an addiction that meets all the technical criteria of physical dependence. These criteria include binging, tolerance, sensitization, and physical withdrawal accompanied by intense cravings.

It's believed that sugar withdrawal is biologically similar to opiate withdrawal.

Sugar Substitutes

The sugar substitutes are considerably more unhealthy than sugar! I recommend they be avoided.

Artificial sweeteners are synthetic chemicals:

Acesulfame potassiumAspartameNeotameSaccharinSucralose

Sugar alcohols are neither sugars nor alcohols; however, they are indigestible and notorious for causing diarrhea. They are frequently used in sugar-free desserts intended for diabetics. I did not soon forget the diarrhea caused by cookies made with mannitol.

Whole foods and the sugar free diet

Any steps you take to eat better-quality, healthier foods, such as those described in Breaking Sugar Addiction, will help you avoid sugar withdrawal and increase your ability to maintain a sugar free diet.